Thread: Are 90s babies true Gen Yers?

Quote by stake

Would you say you're "bitter" or "insecure" that you don't count as Generation Y?

Quote by donnie

I've heard some people say if you were born later than 1989, you belong to Gen Z/the Google Generation.

Personally I think that's bunk. I was born in 1990 and while I can only remember a little bit before the "Internet Age" started in 1995, the same could really be said for anyone born after 1985 or so. If you class "childhood" as being ages 3-12 then the vast majority of mine was in the 90s. The real divide between a "digital native" and an "adapter" I'd say would be if the Internet wasn't mainstream until you were say, in high school.

The Internet wasn't a big part of my childhood until I was 10. Even then, access to it was limited by whenever my parents needed to make a phone call, so I still mostly relied on TV well into the 2000s for my information and entertainment. I wouldn't say the Web "ruled my life" until maybe '04-'05, which was when I really started getting into forums and got my own high speed connection.

I didn't have a cell phone until I was 19, social networking wasn't popular until my high school years, I had a CD walkman and recorded things off the radio with cassette tapes. I played with Hot Wheels, Yak Baks, tamagotchics and walkie talkies - not iphone apps.

And I grew up during the Disney Renaissance. We went many years without having cable. I remember back in 1996/97 being so excited when we got it. We even had a crappy old TV where you actually had to turn a dial to change the channel.

I think people born in the early 90s are pretty old school by today's standards. Especially compared to the middle school kids now born in the late 90s/early 00s. What do you think? I'd even say that if you were before 2000, you should probably count as a millenial. I'd say Gen Y extends from about 1979 to 1999.

Quote by bassman21

That's right Shake. Not every teen in the 60s/70s was a "hippie". Not every teen in the 80s wore leg warmers or dressed like a "punk". Not every teen in the 90s wore Doc Martins and flannel shirts.

In actuality each generation had several styles, trends and ways of thinking. The same hold true today. There are asshole and nice people with every generation as well. What tends to happen is unique attributes of a generation tend to sick out more than the ones that stayed the same from the previous. The next generation will stick out in their own way and those groups will probably go against what the previous did.

Quote by whttypodcast

There's too much emphasis on this. The time when you were born can tell a lot about what the music, tech, and movies were like as you were growing up, but you determine who you are as a person.

Quote by retrofan01

I saw this online somewhere:

1977-1986: Gen XYers/Xennials
1987-1995: Gen Yers/Millennials
1996-2008: Gen Zers

Quote by RainKeepsRaining

Quote by retrofan01

I saw this online somewhere:

1977-1986: Gen XYers/Xennials
1987-1995: Gen Yers/Millennials
1996-2008: Gen Zers

I may look like I am contradicting myself by analyzing this after my last post, but I'll give it a go anyways.

1977-1986 as a kind of "cusp" generation between X and Y? Interesting thought because sometimes the 2nd half of the baby boomers are called "Generation Jones".

To look for a common similarity with the 1977-1986 group, how about music videos? It is hard to me to say when music videos became a concrete normal but possibly around 1984-85, following the success of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Everyone from 1977-1986 turned 7 at the oldest in 1984 making them young enough to have grown up in a time when music videos were normal. But if you want to turn 8 before 1991 (the year that Nirvana changed the music scene) you can't be born any later than 1982.

Grouping those born in 1987 with those born in 1995 is interesting because 1995 has been labelled generation Z by my most trusted source. You would need to be born in 1992 at the latest to turn 8 before 2001 (the year 9/11 happened). Ignoring 9/11 though, I wouldn't say that the millenium culture had died any earlier than 2003. In my opinion, if you turned 8 in 2002, you were old enough to experience millenium culture. You would need to be born in 1992/93 at the latest to enjoy a good experience of millenium culture because I suspect that the best of millenium culture would've been finished by the time 9/11 happened.

Based on this:

1977-1982: Strong Generation MTV
1983-1986: Weak Generation MTV
1987-1992: Strong Generation Alternative
1993-1994: Weak Generation Alternative

As for Generation Z ending in 2008, they turned 8 in 2016. You could say that everyone born in 2008 or earlier turned 8 before Trump became president. But it may be too early to judge the impact of turning 8 after Obama. I believe that "Modern Animation" (I think it might be known as CGI) had become normal by about 2004, even though Toy Story was supposed to have been made with "Modern Animation", released back in 1995). Social media had definitely had an impact by the time 2010 had ended (about 2006 is when I estimate that the internet culture had really taken over, but I could be a couple of years out) and I would say that the older ways of doing things were already being replaced by many people before the beginning of 2007.

For now:

1995-1997/98: Weak Generation Internet
1998/99-2008: Strong Generation Internet